1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a method of print control and a program for expanding the functionalities of print systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printer drivers for controlling the output of printers are usually provided by printer manufacturers for installation by the end user: After installation, however, a need may arise to improve or add additional functionality to the printer driver.
This is usually accomplished by plug-ins, which are software modules generally used to modify or add functionality to software components. Thus, printer drivers that achieve the addition of a specific function by using plug-ins are becoming more prevalent.
For example, a technique for achieving the simplification of print processing and the improvement of print speed in an information processing system has been disclosed (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-108580).
When additional functionality is added by a plug-in, the user may be allowed to modify the plug-in settings as desired (e.g., using a print setting sheet user interface usually added to existing print setting sheets of the print driver). However, the modified settings may conflict with the original settings or other settings (including settings for printer drivers and settings for additional function modules). Often before an additional function is added, when a UI is provided to the user to change print setting sheets, the settings are arranged in order not to cause inconsistencies among the settings. By inconsistencies, it is meant for example, that one cannot simultaneously have both the “Staple” and the “Collate” printer functions as settings. Thus, only the items allowed for the user to set are selectable while other non-selectable items are grayed out. That is, items for which inconsistencies may arise when set by a user are prohibited. The processing to prevent inconsistencies among the settings is known as conflict processing.
However, since the plug-in to be added is unknown to the printer driver, it is often difficult to determine inconsistencies. Thus, performance of accurate conflict processing remains a difficult task.